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The Morning Standard
|January 23, 2026
THE well-known micro-drama festival, 'Thespis', will soon be back in the capital with its fifth edition.
India's first festival devoted solely to microdrama, has made a OG name for itself in the country's theatre scene by embracing compactness without compromising creative nuance.
The festival's stringent ten-minute time limit for each play encourages authors, directors, and performers to condense the story into a shorter version.
Organised by Vriksh - The Theatre, a collective formed in 2015, 'Thespis 5: National Micro Drama Festival' will be held on February 1 at Delhi's LTG Auditorium, and will feature short plays by theatre practitioners from across India.
A time of financial constraints gave rise to the concept of micro-drama. Vriksh's secretary, Ajith G. Maniyan, remembers that the theatre had trouble raising money while they were working on Hearts That Wrote History, a full-length show based on the life of former Indian civil servant, V.P. Menon. It was filmmaker Prakash Vaddikal who suggested experimenting with short-format drama.
This story is from the January 23, 2026 edition of The Morning Standard.
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